


Cognito, Ergo Sum

by stcrmpilot



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who - Various Authors
Genre: (Just to be safe), Angst, Book: The Eyeless (Doctor Who), Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Introspection, Missing Scene, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stcrmpilot/pseuds/stcrmpilot
Summary: He whispered things to the machine, told it some of his fears and secrets.





	Cognito, Ergo Sum

**Author's Note:**

> I love this book.... so much....

The pain, the Doctor finds, doesn't fade, no matter how long he sits there. Lies there, really—he's slumped over a chunk of rubble, his head rested in the crook of his elbow, his legs curled beneath him. Everything hurts; his back, knees, and arms are a mess of bruises and lacerations, his rib cage aches. Dust and airborne particulate, disturbed after fifteen years’ rest by the collapse of the car factory, are making his throat burn, his eyes water. His head is throbbing, and he can't be bothered to regulate his blood pressure to make it go away. It hurts to breathe, to move, to think.

He does it all anyway. The pain is the only thing keeping him grounded, and he doesn't know what he would do, if it did fade. He doesn't want it to.

The weapon, sheathed haphazardly in Alsa's bag, sits a few feet away. This, he doesn't think about. He thinks he's thought enough about the bloody thing, since landing on the planet; he's already fulfilled his task well enough, he's paid his debt, and he doesn't want to feel the thing squirm and writhe inside its metal casing. Inside him.

Every once in a while he forgets this fact, and his curiosity (as he would prefer to call it—longing is too dangerous) gets the best of him. He prods at it with his mind, feels sick when it prods back.

The arm that isn't in use as a pillow wraps around his chest, and he curls further in on himself, nearly sliding off his rock and onto the rubble-strewn ground. The shift in his weight digs his bruised leg into a sharp bit of rock, and he gasps. He doesn't pull back.

He's shaking—he doesn't know why. He doesn't know why he hasn't gotten up and continued his trek either, but he knows that it feels unbearable. What does it matter, he thinks fiercely, what does it matter if he ends up lying on the ground? What does it matter if he stays here? There might not be anyone out there, there's no one waiting for him, there's no one to find him like this, and even if there is… well, they aren't the ones he wants. Even if there's still life out there, it can't possibly be worth getting up. Continuing on.

Not without someone beside him.

"I don't want this," he breathes, too quiet for even the machine to hear. His voice catches and breaks in his throat, raw from disuse. "I don't want to do this anymore."

The gentle hum of the sonic device remains unchanged in pitch and volume. It isn't listening.

Perhaps, the Doctor thinks, it's better that way. 

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out at [stcrmpilot.tumblr.com](https://stcrmpilot.tumblr.com)


End file.
